Fighting Intensifies Between India, Pakistan
New Delhi:
Shelling and gunfire intensified on Wednesday on the de facto border between India and Pakistan in the Kashmir region, killing nine civilians on a bus one day after the Indian Army promised retribution for what it said was the killing of three of its soldiers.
Pakistan said Indian troops fired on a bus in the Neelam Valley on Pakistan’s side of the Line of Control in the disputed Kashmir region, killing the nine passengers and seriously wounding nine others.
The Indian military also fired on rescue workers in an ambulance trying to reach the wounded, Pakistan said. In other violence reported on Wednesday, the Indian military also killed three Pakistani soldiers, including a captain, Pakistan said, and Pakistani forces retaliated, killing seven Indian soldiers.
A high-level Pakistani diplomat, Deputy High Commissioner Syed Haider Shah, called the violence “a serious escalation of the situation” and a “grave breach of international and humanitarian law.”
Brig. P. S. Gotra of the Indian Army’s northern command defended India’s actions but did not comment on Pakistan’s allegations that Indian forces had targeted civilians and fired on an ambulance.
“It was a proper fire assault from our side as a retribution of yesterday’s incident,” said Brigadier Gotra, referring to the killing of three Indian soldiers on Tuesday. He denied that any Indian soldiers had been killed on Wednesday.
The Indian Army, on its official Twitter site, said the directors general of military operations of the two sides held talks on a hotline on Wednesday evening at Pakistan’s request.